Baited Blood by Sue Ann Jaffarian Page B

information, but not all. Tonight she was asked to sit in and take notes. Even Notchey was asked to attend.
    When Madison called Notchey to tell him what had happened that morning, he’d invited her out to dinner. They had gone to Gladstone’s in Malibu. While there, Notchey received a text message from Samuel asking him to attend the special council meeting.
    “How convenient,” Notchey said, showing Madison the message. “I have to take you back home anyway.”
    “What would happen,” Madison asked quietly over their appetizer of crispy calamari, “if the police were called in and found a dead vampire?”
    Notchey tilted back his bottle of Guinness and took a long drink before answering. “Hard to say. At first, I’m sure they would think it was just a hoax, or that it was the body of one of those vampirism cult followers with the fake fangs. Of course, the autopsy would be revealing, not to mention interesting.”
    “What if the body started decomposing right before their eyes?”
    “That really spooked you, didn’t it?”
    Madison shuddered. “Yes. It was like watching one of those nature shows where they speed up time so you can see in minutes what happens over years.” She took a drink of her soda. “Have you ever seen a vampire die?”
    Notchey remained silent, taking a couple of short nips off his beer bottle while he stared out the window at the darkness that was the Pacific Ocean. Madison’s curiosity rose like a thermometer in the desert. It was obviously a question the cop wasn’t ready to answer in an instant. She had a choice: drop the question or press. She pressed.
    “Well, have you?”
    “Yes, I have.” He continued staring out at the waves.
    “Did it scare you? Or are you too tough a cop to let a silly thing like instant mummification throw you off?”
    “Cops are people, Madison.” He turned away from the window and faced her again. “Even though we see some pretty horrible stuff, I’m sure a corpse disintegrating on fast forward would scare anyone shitless, including a seasoned cop.” He dipped a calamari ring into the sauce and popped it into his mouth, thinking while he chewed. “After, I’m not sure what would happen.” He ate another piece of calamari, this time a fried cluster of tiny tentacles. “Although I’m sure if the media got ahold of it, the Dedhams’ property would be overrun with reporters, most of whom would be making up shit about either some religious miracle or evidence of the devil at work. It would have to be sold as one or the other so the public could understand it.”
    “But what about the police investigation?”
    Notchey laughed, not a happy laugh but one of wry speculation. “That would be a mess, no doubt about it. And I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be the guy filing the report.”
    There would be no police report. There was no body. The only thing the dead vampire had left behind was an image for Doug’s sketch and nightmare fodder for Madison.
    When their entrees arrived, Madison wasn’t thinking about her grilled shrimp. On her mind was the kiss from yesterday. Notchey hadn’t said anything about it. When he had asked her to dinner, she’d wondered if he’d thrown out the invitation to give them a chance to talk. So far, it seemed all he wanted was company for dinner. She wondered if she should say something or just keep her mouth shut. She’d had only two relationships in her life. One had started in her last year of high school and had ended a few years later. The other had been shortly after she arrived in Los Angeles. Both had ended badly. The guy from high school had developed a serious drug problem. The one in LA had turned out to be married. For all of his personal torment, Mike Notchey seemed to be a stand-up kind of guy. Someone dependable, though elusive and filled with secrets. And he wasn’t a vampire. Whatever attraction she felt for him, she was sure it was mutual. Or was it? Her track record and background left her